Sergio Perez admitted he needs to end his run of poor performances after crashing out in the first round of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver spun into a barrier 12 minutes into Q1. He was trying to improve his time on a wet track when he lost control of his car at turn eight. He will start tomorrow’s race from 16th on the grid.
“I’m obviously very disappointed because the whole weekend has been really strong up to now,” said Perez, who was fourth-quickest in practice yesterday.
“It hurts. It hurts to let your whole team down, but at the end of the day I’m determined even more than ever to get back up to where we belong as a team.
“Tomorrow is another opportunity. We’re starting [16th] so let’s see what we are able to do from there.”
Perez arrived in Hungary facing questions over his performance at Red Bull. He has contributed just 15 points to the team over the last six races.
The Hungaroring is regarded as one of the most difficult circuits to overtake on. Perez admitted he faces “a massive job tomorrow” to get on terms with the front runners.
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“There’s a long race, obviously, ahead of us tomorrow. I think I just have to push out the external noise down, focus on the job.
“Like I said yesterday I think it was the best Friday of the season. We are definitely making progress so our time will come.
“Unfortunately it’s just one after the other and it’s something that we need to change quickly.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said he was relieved Perez was unhurt and his car had been badly damaged by the impact.
“It’s good that he’s okay because it was quite a big accident,” Horner told the official F1 channel. “But it’s a huge shame, yesterday was looking quite strong for him.
“Obviously it’s tricky conditions, but it’s the same for everybody. He was up on his lap time and I think he could see, probably, the rain on his visor and the car just got away from him.
“Unfortunately, it’s done quite a lot of damage.”
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2024 Hungarian Grand Prix
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